> Hello,
> Why has my account been disabled???????????
> I have not done anything listed here????????
> Please let me know ASAP.
>
> Dennis P.
>
>
>
In a message dated 10/21/2003 5:59:37 AM US Mountain Standard Time, staff@wheresgeorge.com writes:
Your account has been disabled because you created 6 separate accounts solely in order to generate fake hits on this geocache bill: http://www.wheresgeorge.com/report.php3?key=333b5c699c728d80e7093e889956e51a. All hits from these accounts have been deleted. If the system detects one more account or fake hit from you on any bill in the system, you account will be terminated. Either play by the rules or don't play. This site does not exist for your abuse and amusement.

Excuse me but you are wrong in your accusation of me creating "FAKE ACCOUNTS" to generate "FAKE HITS"!!!!!!!!

I have introduced my family (Kids, Grandparents) and friends to www.wheresgeorge.com, and in doing so now you are penalizing me????

PLEASE EXPLAIN YOUR ACCUSATION AGAINST ME!!!!!!!!

Is it not wanted for people to pass on your site to others???? Are you not a site that is family friendly??? I can prove that ALL ACCOUNTS I KNOW THAT LOGGED YOUR SITE BY MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS WERE ACTUAL CORRECT LOGS BY SEPARATE PEOPLE (as geocachers, my family and friends takes pictures as we are out geocaching, and if you go to www.geocaching.com and follow said bill you would see it logged and pictures posted of family at different geocaches). If you as www.wheresgeorge.com are against geocache bills being logged on your site, PLEASE PUT IT IN YOUR RULES!

At this point I fell you owe me an apology for your false accusations against me, and you need to correct your actions taken as you ASSUMED correct.

I will be expecting a response ASAP.

Dennis P.

***********************************************************
my email:
Eight posts were removed, and I received no notification. Do you routinely eliminate logs? How do you determine which ones to delete?

What can I do to ensure this doesn't happen again? These were legitimate logs, from people who I've had e-mail contact with. These were real posts, unlike the 100's of fake ones on the accounts of the #2 and #4 persons in Minnesota

------->Reply from: Hank (Oct-21-03)

The entries that were removed WERE all faked by one person who created multiple accounts for everyone in his family - regardless of what he says. The abuse was too much for me to let pass - even for a Geocache bill. Tell me, does it makes sense to track a bill that you put into a geocache, and your child finds it - as that should count as two separate entries? I think not - which is exactly what that person was doing with about 6 members of his family. I won't stand for it.

yup yup yup --- Wallypog and I used to both have accounts on WheresGeorge but we logged this exact same geo-bill and his log was deleted because we signed up from the same computer (granted, his was months after mine) We are separate people, but it didn't matter and I didn't push it.

Hopefully gc.com will never disallow multiple accounts from the same computer because there will be lots of families and couples in uproar over that.

I think the geocaching bills must be a real headache for WheresGeorge because once again the rules of the game changed and evolved for them and it was not what they originally had envisioned for their game. (we all know how THAT happens, eh?)

I know the geocacher "Wild George" is the one who owns the top spot bill and they have since disallowed anyone logging on it. His mistake was to make a small, edited version of that bill and use it as his signature item. Those nuts in UT put it to #1 within a few weeks. WheresGeorge never lets it get past 21 hits.

#5. Hit Validation : The Where's George? management reserves the sole right to delete or otherwise edit bills and/or hits that it deems violates any or all of these guidelines.
& #6. Abuse/User Account Termination; Any Where's George? user that abuses this website by entering fake bills, generating fake hits, or entering bills that they don't personally have possession of at the time and place (zip code) of entry, at the sole discretion of the Where's George? Management, can be totally removed from the system without warning. Users wishing to be removed from the system should email your request with your user-number, email address, and password on the Contact Us page.

BUt in the FAQ:

Q: Can multiple people use the same computer?
A: Yes! Each person can Logon using their email address and password. Your browser MUST support cookies and Javascript to do this.

So, you didnt use multiple email addresses? If not, then it appears you have no gripe. If you did, then they arent being consistant to thier own rules.
Judging from his reply to you, I'd guess they have standards against this, as it appears as a means to boost your own numbers. (Which he apparently doesnt tolerate)

In geocaching, that would also eliminate the "pass the TB around the table so everyone can log it" occurance.
To each his own I guess.

No, I haven't seen or logged the bill in over a year. It was a family in Arizona. If you look at the Travel Bug page, you'll see the logs. They all had separate geocache and wheresgeorge accounts. I could dig through my email and get the notifications.

One was a 7 year old boy, who had logged a few bills before they even got the Bug. I think there were a couple brothers and a Grandpa.

Quote:

so...what really the big deal its not like they pay you for being the top one??
Or do they?

I'll be honest. Hank and I tangled before, about a year and a half ago. I've entered over 13,000 bills since 11/99 and am currently #2 or 3 in the state, 115 worldwide (over 1,000,000 users). We see 20-40 George bills every day at work.

There are lots of wheresgeorge geocache bills, I guess. I would suspect most of them get spent and not logged. I think I had the first (only) bill that's a Travel Bug. My thought was that the tag would give it a little "protection" Then there's the BONUS for whoever bumps the bill into #1.

The "Top 10 Geocache Bills" report has been permanently removed from this site.

Due to recent events, it has come to our attention that there is a conflict
between the rules of Where's George? and Geocaching.com.

Apparently, Geocaching.com allows (and even encourages) friends and family
to place and remove Travel Bugs from Geocaches and log each as a separate
event along the way for the Travel Bug. When a family is involved, this can
cause multiple events or logs of the Travel Bug in a very short period of time.
While this is fine for most Travel Bugs, it presents a serious problem for
Where's George? bills placed in Geocaches as Travel Bugs.

The general rules of this site (available here) specifically prohibit trading
or exchanging bills with friends, family or anyone known to the bill distributor.
This rule is to encourage "natural circulation" of the currency, and to prevent multiple
"fake hits" from happening on any bill. Afterall, the purpose of Where's George? is to
track the manner in which currency naturally circulates throughout the country and the
world. Allowing people to arbitrarily enter multiple hits to track that a bill was
traded among a circle of friends and family defeats the entire purpose of this site.
In reality, nobody really needs Where's George? to track that they traded some
bills with friends/family.

When it comes to Where's George? bills being used as Travel Bugs, this rule
conflicts with the Geocache site which allows such exchanging and logging of Travel Bugs.
Therefore, if you are going to use Where's George? bills as Travel Bugs or in any Geocache,
the rules posted below now apply.

In addition, it is apparent that the existence of the "Top 10 Geocache Bills" report
had created competition to get the top bill listed. As it is trivial to log entries
of a bill and make any bill the "Top #1 Bill", the existence of this report was causing
several bills to be hit repeatedly in violation of the general rules of the site.
This is not the purpose of this site, and the report has been removed to prevent the
site from being abused in this manner.

In the future, if this site continues to be abused for this or similar purposes, all Geocache
bills will removed from this site. I do not want this to happen as there is great synergy
between the sites, so please follow the rules and keep this site "Geocache Friendly"._________________Joined: 16 Dec 2002

NO!!!! My log was way back last year (August 2002). Mine is the second log on that bill and my son Wallypog was briefly the third -- the family that logged 8 times is from Arizona.
Back then, WheresGeorge DID NOT allow accounts from the same computer and his log was deleted. I was just recounting that we had trouble with the same bill.

I wasn't replying to YOU- it was meant for kingboreas (!!!-?)Settle down.

Seems like that new page pretty much makes thier position known.
Kind of a bummer the 2 sports(still not sure what to call either)
couldnt work something else out. Hopefully, this solution will
keep everybody happy, and playing nice together.

Rocky Raccoon was stolen very near his goal. I resurrected him at the Pet Semetary. His goal was Indiana. I placed a new cache on I90 east and left Rocky there. He was promptly taken to California. He's now headed to Maui.

I released Antsy the Anteater (TBFCC) 8 May 2002, and he finally reached his goal of having my mom, Jeanthebean, find him in California. In the past year and a half, he did make it to California once, to get taken to the Southeast, then to Brazil, and he was in a cache that got flooded out by Hurricane Izabel in Texas, but somebody grabbed him before the cache got wiped out but didn't log him. Now, I suppose I have another year and a half to wait for him to come back home._________________There comes a time in every young boy's life when he gets an irresistible urge to seek buried treasure.--Mark Twain

I have been reading the logs of your caches. I like that Rocky needed a vaction in california. I wonder how long of a vacation....

Well, forever, it seems ...

Quote:

Unfortunately, my car was broken into and among the items stolen were several TB's, including Rocky, I think. I tried to contact all the "parents", but evidently, I missed a few. There -is- still a small possibility that Rocky is just lost somewhere at my parents' house, but more likely than not he went down with the others. I did find an unattached tag in a crevice of my trunk a few days ago; I will check to see if it is Rocky's. It really is a shame, and I'm sorry to have to break the bad news after all this time. I hope you won't let it deter you from caching in the future...